Electrical equipment, particularly medium-voltage or high-voltage electrical distribution equipment, typically requires a high degree of electrical and thermal insulation between components. Accordingly, it is well known to encapsulate components of electrical equipment, such as coils of a transformer, in a containment vessel and to fill the containment vessel with a fluid. The fluid facilitates dissipation of heat generated by the components and can be circulated through a heat exchanger to efficiently lower the operating temperature of the components. The fluid may also serves as electrical insulation between components or to supplement other forms of insulation disposed around the components, such as cellulose paper or other insulating materials. Various fluids having the desired electrical and thermal properties can be used. However, electrical equipment is typically filled with various oils, such as castor oil, mineral oil, and/or a synthetic “oil” such as chlorinated diphenyl or silicone oil.
Often electrical distribution equipment is used in an environment where failure can be very expensive or even catastrophic because of a loss of electric power to critical systems. Also, failure of electrical distribution equipment ordinarily results in a damage to the equipment itself and surrounding equipment, thus requiring replacement. Further, such failure of electrical distribution equipment can cause injury to personnel or other property. Therefore, it is desirable to monitor the status of electrical equipment to predict potential failure of the equipment through detection of incipient faults and to take remedial action through repair, replacement, or adjustment of operating conditions of the equipment.
A known method of monitoring the status of fluid-filled electrical equipment is to monitor various parameters of the fluid. For example, the temperature of the fluid and the total combustible gas (TCG) in the fluid is known to be indicative of the operating state of fluid-filled electrical equipment. Therefore, monitoring these parameters of the fluid can provide an indication of any incipient faults in the equipment. For example, it has been found that carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide increase in concentration with thermal aging and degradation of cellulosic insulation in electrical equipment. Hydrogen and various hydrocarbons (such as acetylene and ethylene, and their derivatives) increase in concentration due to hot spots caused by circulating currents and dielectric breakdown such as corona or arcing. Concentrations of oxygen and nitrogen tend to indicate the quality of the gas pressurizing system employed in large equipment, such as transformers. Accordingly “dissolved gas analysis” (DGA) has become a well-accepted method of discerning incipient faults in fluid-filled electric equipment.
Generally, an amount of fluid is removed from the containment vessel of the equipment through a valve. The removed fluid is then subjected to testing for dissolved gas in a lab or by equipment in the field. This method of testing is referred to herein as “off-line” DGA. Since the gases are generated by various known faults, such as degradation of insulation material or other portions of electric components in the equipment, turn-to-turn discharges in coils, overloading, loose connections, or the like, various diagnostic theories have been developed for correlating the quantities of various gases in fluid with particular faults in electrical equipment in which the fluid is contained.
Known methods of off-line DGA typically require extraction of gases from the fluid for several quantitative analyses. These extracted gases are often analyzed by using photo-acoustic spectroscopy or gas chromatography. The gas concentration in the fluid is generally calculated from the measured concentrations of the extracted gases. However, these methods suffer from inaccuracy, uncertainties and repeatability issues generally involved with the complicated extraction process. In addition to this, the gas concentration in liquid is calculated from the measured concentrations of the extracted gases. The calculations have several assumptions involved, leading to errors and uncertainties.